


our days were always numbered

by fractions



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, First Meetings, Gen, How Clint met Natasha, Language, Origin Story, SHIELD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-01
Updated: 2013-08-01
Packaged: 2017-12-22 01:53:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/907485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fractions/pseuds/fractions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Draykov's daughter incident, or another one of those How Clint met Natasha movieverse fics.</p>
<p>"She keeps to the sidewalk near the building, and though he’s sure he is out of sight, she stops suddenly and looks up.  Her gaze glosses the windows and goes straight toward the roof.  He sinks back, out of the line of her gaze.  He thinks about reporting that he’s been compromised, but he knows it’s not true—by Coulson’s silence, he knows it’s not true as well. There’s no way she can see him. He takes a breath and tenses the muscles in his legs, pushing himself back to the edge.  </p>
<p>And she’s gone."</p>
            </blockquote>





	our days were always numbered

The picture paper-clipped to the top photo of her file is greyscaled and pixelated from being blown up to proper size. Her head is turned toward the camera like she knows it’s there, and there’s a look in her eye like she doesn’t care. The attached profile tells him that she has red hair and green eyes; he lets his imagination fill in her coloring, red hair long and braided over one shoulder, teased at the crown, green eyes locked with the camera’s lens. She’d been leaving some gala or party or mark or assassination, maybe all of the above. 

Clint flips through the remaining papers: lists of hits, confirmed and speculative; information on the Red Room operation; lists of locations, dates, times—the last she’d been seen, the last she’d killed, threatened, tempted, seduced. He scans the lists and lets his gaze linger on all the “last knowns,” most of them in Russia. She doesn’t go far. These details are most useful in tracking a target, especially one that seems to have no patterns or particularities. No allegiances either, judging by her kill list. She’s killed people from almost every organization that’s dared set foot in Russia. She’s listed as “freelance,” which means she doesn’t work for anyone in particular; she goes to the highest bidder. Unfortunately for those who wish to enlist her services, no one knows who the highest bidder will be. Judging by the long periods between her last speculated targets (nothing had been confirmed in years), people were becoming wise to this and staying away from her. 

He flips the papers back into the manila file folder, eyes lingering for a moment on her photo, slick beneath the tips of his fingers. Coulson clears his throat. Clint lets the front of the folder fall closed and raises his eyes to meet Coulson’s. He doesn’t need to ask his assignment; one of the perks of being an assassin is that the job rarely varies. He knows he’s being sent to kill this woman, this Black Widow, as they’ve codenamed her. She’s not the only Red Room operative on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s list, but she’s the only one who’s gone rogue and has been making a habit of taking out members of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s allies just when they need them and their enemies before they give up any information. 

Clint nods. “When do we leave?”

\---

S.H.I.E.L.D. has a small base of operations in Moscow, so Clint and Coulson and four other agents move their belongings into the bare barracks there. They’re aiming for a quick in and out, but logically, they know they’re bound to be there longer than they want. No one believes this will be an easy assignment. 

Clint ducks into the first bedroom and closes the door. He doesn’t have the patience to deal with the small talk that inevitably sets in as soon as they get to a new location. It’s like a ritual that no one can shake. They can’t just jump right into a plan; they have to discuss things like how hard the mattresses in these places are and how Russia is so damn cold. 

He pulls her file from his bag and climbs to the top bunk in the room. He wedges himself there with his back against the wall and his shoulders bent away from the low ceiling. It’s amazing how thin the folder is, how little they really know about her. Natalia Romanova. As a child she was taken in by the Red Room Academy. Fronting as an all-girl boarding school, the operation has gone on for years without much notice. The goal was to train young girls—most of them orphans or poor girls sold for next to nothing to provide bread for their families—as agents, namely assassins. The girls were brainwashed, rewired to do the Red Room’s bidding, which is what made Romanova’s freelance status so strange. There is no note on her parents, meaning S.H.I.E.L.D. knows nothing about them: who they are, where they are. Likely they’re dead. 

The time of her split from the Red Room is unknown, as is the reason. Clearly she maintained contact, as many of her early kills suit their purposes. It may have been some time before she was able to rid herself of their conditioning. She may have still been with them, but interspersed on her kill list are names of Red Room operatives that Fury has marked with stars in the margins. Clint doesn’t know how Fury knows, but of course, he doesn’t know a lot of things Fury knows. Clint didn’t even know this operation existed yesterday. 

From there, she’s just a list of her kills. Names he doesn’t know. More with asterisks in the margins. 

There’s a soft knock at the door, and Coulson murmurs something about a meeting. Clint closes the file, tucks it under his arm, and slides from the vinyl mattress to the floor.

\---

The area of Moscow is known for its dense population of millionaires, billionaires, and men generally careless with their money. With that, logically, comes women who want to take advantage of this fact. There are few Cinderella stories; these aren’t poor women climbing up from the streets, but daughters of other millionaires, billionaires, and men generally careless with their money. It’s a cycle that repopulates itself in nearly every country, but it just so happens that Clint is playing the part in Russia. His accent is rusty, and if it weren’t for the champagne and endless party murmurs, someone would probably see right through him. Or hear right through him.

He’s without his bow, armed only with a knife against his left calf and a pistol pressed to his right ribcage. He isn’t here to take anyone out, just to stake out the location. Aleksei Draykov, one of the wealthiest men in Moscow, had planned a three-night gala—invite only, of course—that S.H.I.E.L.D. assumed Natalia Romanova would attend. If she were anywhere in the area, and certain intel said she would be. If she had a job here, Clint would be responsible for stopping it, Coulson had told him. But since even the _circumstance_ was an “if,” neither Coulson nor Clint knew who the target would be. Most likely it was Draykov himself.

Two weeks after they’d arrived in Moscow, after following leads and finding no trace of the Black Widow, Coulson had passed gala invitations to Clint and two of the other agents, Meyers and Cates, and had told them they’d find proper attire in their rooms. 

Clint had chuckled, breathing out his nose. “So, if we’re not going to find her, the least S.H.I.E.L.D. can do is send is out to have some fun.” 

“This isn’t meant to be a social gathering,” Coulson corrected and went on to instruct them on what they would do. S.H.I.E.L.D. assumed the Black Widow would not strike on the first day of the event. Maybe she enjoyed a good party too much for that, Clint thought to himself. The goal was to infiltrate the event and get a confirmed sighting on the first night; the second evening they would be positioned outside the gala, away from the civilians attending. The third day they’d be on their way back to New York.

The main room, a large, cavernous area just past the foyer, was strung from ceiling to floor with twinkling lights. Rolls of scarlet fabric draped around the walls, and waiters with matching scarlet ties weaved in and out of party guests.

Clint plucks a champagne flute from a passing waiter. Technically, he’s not supposed to drink while on the clock, but he’s broken the rules many times before. He downs the drink and places it back on another waiter’s tray. As he turns, he bumps into a woman and mumbles an apology. She says nothing in return, just looks at him over her shoulder as she passes. Green eyes. Red hair. Royal blue dress that reaches to the floor, concealing at least a dozen weapons, if Clint had to guess. 

He tries to keep the surprise from registering on his face and turns to skirt a crowd moving in the opposite direction. He presses a hand to his comm and says, “Spotted,” and falls into a group near him. They laugh, and he joins in. If she’s on the lookout, she’ll notice the people who stand apart from the others. Clint glances toward the front entrance and sees Meyers in a similar group of strangers, his arm thrown around the shoulders of a young blonde woman. He can’t see Cates, and he’s lost sight of Romanova. Just as well, since he’s not been instructed to kill her tonight, just to make sure she’s present. It seemed liked an unnecessary risk to let her live another day, but in the back of his mind, Clint realizes that Draykov is probably a S.H.I.E.L.D. threat as well, so they don’t mind if they lose Black Widow while she’s doing a job for them, despite Clint’s instructions to take her out before she can do so. If he saves Draykov’s life, S.H.I.E.L.D. gains a wealthy Russian donor. If he doesn’t, they no longer have to worry about him. Hell, maybe they’ve even hired her. 

Clint moves with the same group of people; they’re all teetering on the edge of having a little _too_ much fun and therefore don’t notice that he doesn’t belong. He catches a flash of red and blue near the exit just as Meyers says, “Confirmed,” in the comm. 

It takes Clint just a moment to react. He detaches himself from the group and whispers, “I’m following her.”

Coulson answers immediately. “Barton, that action is not advised. I repeat, that action is not advised.” When Clint doesn’t reply, he tries again, “Agent Barton, your orders were only to confirm sighting of the target. Further action could result in scaring away the target. Do you want to spend another month in Russia, another year?”

Clint stops himself. It’s a stupid idea, and he knows it. He’d learn nothing from following her except, perhaps, where her base is located. This would be valuable information and would allow him to take her out without worry of civilian causalities, but if she spotted him following her, she’d be gone without bothering to change out of her formal attire. 

“Understood,” Clint says, rejoining the group of laughing partygoers. 

\---

Clint doesn’t dream that night because he doesn’t sleep. He’s too hot and too cold and too restless. He paces the span of his room so long that he thinks he’ll wear a divot in the concrete, so he lets himself out even though they’re not advised to go out without alerting someone. Again, he’s not much for orders, or for being treated like a child on a family vacation. 

The street outside the compound is wet and empty, and when he walks he keeps an eye on the skyline, his eye drawn to every nook and cranny where someone could be waiting to snipe him. There’s no one waiting at all, and he knows it. No one is looking for him; he’s picking up the spots for himself, though he’s likely to be off this road in a day and a half, all things going as planned. 

He takes a turn down another empty street and catches a glimpse of a shadow beyond the next corner. He tenses as the shadow grows longer under the lamplight and then shrinks around a small body. A child. A girl, to be exact. She’s wearing a dark dress that hits above her knees, but in the poor light he can see nothing more. For a moment he thinks of calling to her, but he’d have nothing to say.

There had been a time he would have relaxed instantly upon realizing the shadow belonged to a child. A time before little girls were raised as agents and trained as killers.

She turns her dark gaze to him and quickly turns away. Her shadow follows her back the way she came. 

He walks back to the compound because he hasn’t found anything he’s really looking for. He falls back onto the plastic mattress. Maybe he dozes, but he still doesn’t sleep. If he did, he is certain he’d dream of the image he’s created in his mind: a red room like a gymnasium and little girls in dark dresses, one in particular with red hair and green eyes. 

\---

The following day, the tuxedos are packed away and Clint, Meyers, and Cates are dressed in tactical gear. Clint feels more comfortable this way. Coulson drives them to a location outside Draykov’s party hours early, before any guests should arrive. He’s rented a hotel room on the opposite street, and he and the other two agents, young and clean-shaven and clearly not field-ready, set up camp there while Clint, Meyers, and Cates drift around the walls, silent. The room is small and shabby, and the men move with their arms pinned to their sides so as not to touch anything or each other. Finally, Clint takes a seat on the edge of the twin bed, rumpling the ugly cream blanket beneath him.

Coulson chatters while he sets up the equipment. He speaks about security cameras and angles and positions, but Clint doesn’t listen because he knows it all already. All he needs is one clear shot—it doesn’t matter where he’s positioned or who is watching (well, that is _supposed_ to matter)—and they’re headed back to New York on a redeye out. Finally, the screens are up, and Clint can see sparsely populated streets. He leans forward with his forearms on his thighs, looking at the streets and pretending not to look for that little girl. 

“You’ll be here,” Coulson says without looking back at Clint. He points to the top left screen, and Clint knows it’s meant for him because it’s the very edge of a building high above the street. He can’t even see the landing where he would be stationed, but he knows it’s behind the camera. Coulson moves his hand from the screen and to the paper map that lies on the desk in front of him. The building is marked with a red X. “I think the Northwest corner is a good starting position, but if Meyers or Cates spots the Widow approaching from a different direction, you’ll need to be ready to move fast. We need to neutralize her from this position before she enters the gala or moves too close to the public.”

Clint grunts a response and stares at the screens while Coulson points out Meyers and Cates’ positions. Luckily there’s only one entrance to the gala, so odds are good that “the Widow,” as Coulson always calls her, will be approaching somewhere on the streets below them. 

After Coulson finishes explaining the specifics and reminds them that losing the target will result in an extension of their mission, Clint stands, shoulders his bow, secures his earpiece, and slips out the door and into the dimly light hallway. He jogs the stairs to the top floor and makes his way to the window at the end of the hall. He slams it open and brings himself to a sitting position on the sill. To his left is the fire escape and he swings there easily and scales it to the top of the building. He makes his way across the rooftops until he makes it to his position. He sees a small black camera pointing off the edge of the building and leans forward to flip it off for good luck.

\---

He’s used to staying in one position for a long period of time, but something about this hit makes the acid in his stomach force its way up into his throat. He swallows, paces a few steps, crouches again. He imagines a young girl with red hair and green eyes forced to kill or be killed, trained, conditioned, brainwashed. He doesn’t know enough about the situation to come to these kinds of conclusions, but he thinks of the young girl alone in the street and his imagination runs away. He thinks of Natalia Romanov’s gaze in the pixelated black and white photo, thinks of Natalia Romanov’s gaze at Draykov’s party. Somehow it reminds him of the dark eyes of the girl in the street.

Cates’ voice interrupts his thoughts. “Target spotted. Coming your way, Barton.” 

And so Coulson was right, as he usually is. Clint strings an arrow crouches a lower at the lip of the building, keeping still and silent in the shadows, out of sight of the street but able to peer down. He counts the seconds from Cates’ call. He hits 60 seconds and thinks it’s too long, just as he sees the top of her head round the corner in his position. The street is empty but for her, he has a clear shot, and no one is around to scream or call the police. He shifts just barely, doesn’t pull back the arrow just yet; he tries to get a better look at her, though Cates has already confirmed it’s her and Coulson is probably staring at her through the camera. But he wants to see her.

She keeps to the sidewalk near the building, and though he’s sure he is out of sight, she stops suddenly and looks up. Her gaze glosses the windows and goes straight toward the roof. He sinks back, out of the line of her gaze. He thinks about reporting that he’s been compromised, but he knows it’s not true—by Coulson’s silence, he knows it’s not true as well. There’s no way she can see him. He takes a breath and tenses the muscles in his legs, pushing himself back to the edge. 

And she’s gone. 

“Fuck,” he breathes, keeping the arrow ready like he thinks maybe she’ll jump back out into the street. There’s no way she made it out of his line of sight in that short amount of time, even if she were sprinting. 

He pushes himself up over the ledge to get a better view of the street, but she’s not there, she’s not anywhere. He curses again and begins to trace the line of the edge to get a view of the adjoining street.

“Coulson?” he says in his comm. And then he’s hit by the weight of her body against his.

He falls back, and she’s on top him before he can fill his lungs with air, and he’s dead, for sure. Her hair is in his eyes and his mouth and his bow is pinned against his arm and his quiver digs into his back and he gasps for breath, feels a blade cold and biting on his neck. She pushes her face close into his so he can see it, and he rasps the only thing he can think, “Natalia!” 

Her eyes widen. He feels the blade twitch, and he takes advantage of her surprise and puts all his weight into flipping her. On the way up, he detaches his arm from the bow, discarding it and pulling free one of his blades in the same movement. With his right hand he catches her wrist and pushes it back, but she’s stronger than he expects and lays the blade into his shoulder. She doesn’t stick him, but she does manage to slice through his suit and almost through to the bone. He bites his lower lip to keep from crying out and forces her arm back until it hits the concrete of the rooftop. She still doesn’t release the knife and pushes back at him with arms and legs until he straddles her and forces his knees into her biceps. Her legs kick up but can connect with nothing. He pushes the flat of his blade against her throat. Her teeth are bared and her eyes are fierce and lock with his.

“Do it,” she says in Russian. 

He hesitates, and she swings her right arm free, almost laying the knife into him again, but he catches her hand, pain searing in his left shoulder. “Fuck,” he breathes and presses his weight into her muscle until her fingers fall away from the handle and the blade hits the ground.

She smiles. “So the Americans are after me now,” she says in English: perfect, unaccented. Her eyes are wide and green and it’s like they see through him, they see _into_ him.

“Shut up,” he says back and digs his knees into her arms. 

“Kill me,” she says.

He tears his gaze from hers and looks at the blade against her skin. She squirms under him, and he glances down, both surprised and not at all surprised that she somehow scaled the building and blindsided him while in fancy dress. She’s wearing a long gold dress, slit up to her thigh.

“You won’t,” she taunts. “You won’t because you had a shot. On the street. Before I saw you.”

“You didn’t see me,” he says, though it’s an idiotic thing to be arguing about. He just has to kill her and get it over with. 

“Touchy,” she says. 

Coulson’s voice in his earpiece: “Barton? Report.” Clint pulls the comm from his ear and lets it hang.

“Who hired you?”

She doesn’t answer. He moves the sharp edge of the knife to her throat.

“I know you’re here to kill Draykov. Who hired you?” He keeps his voice tight and clipped and tries to avoid her eyes.

She laughs. “You’ve got the wrong information.”

“What?”

“I was just attending a party. A nice party. A girl like me doesn’t get to dress up much, you see.”

“Shut up. Who hired you?”

“You’ll have to decide if you want me to shut up or you want me to talk.”

He takes a breath. “Talk. Who hired you?”

“No one hired me. I work for myself. Kill me,” she says again.

“You have a death wish or something?”

“For my whole life,” she replies, and he thinks of the Red Room and the child in the street.

“Who hired you to kill Draykov?”

She doesn’t answer. She tilts her head back, giving him better access to her jugular. 

“You don’t really want to die, Natalia,” he says. Using her name gives him power; he can see it in her face.

“I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure of being introduced,” she replies.

“Who hired you?”

She rolls her eyes. Actually _rolls_ her eyes. “I told you. No one. But you’re not here to find out who hired me, because if you were, you’d know I’m not here to kill Draykov. Since you don’t have the best information, you haven’t been looking for it. You haven’t been looking for information; you’ve just been looking for me.” 

“You’re wrong,” he says.

“And you’re a liar. You’re the one throwing my name around. Just kill me already. Whoever you’re working for will be up here soon, and I’m sure they’ll finish the job if you’re too much of a coward. Just do me a favor and get Draykov’s daughter out before your people kill him. Or whoever’s people they are; you all look the same to me.”

He knows she’s probably lying, but he thinks she’s telling the truth. He doesn’t know what he knows and what he thinks. 

“Draykov’s daughter?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“What do you want with Draykov’s daughter?”

“None of your business.”

“Going to deliver her to your little Red Room?” he asks with venom and just by the look on her face, he knows it’s the wrong thing to say. She’d never do that, and if her hit record is any indication, she would do just the opposite. And maybe that’s exactly what she is doing, but what would the Red Room want with Draykov’s daughter?

She spits, “You don’t know anything about me,” and swings up her right arm again. She manages to smash her elbow in his temple, and he reels back, nearly falling out of his crouch. He loses his weight advantage, and she pulls away, plucking up her knife as she goes. 

He rolls to his side tucks his bow into his injured left arm. He hisses as he stabilizes the bow, strings an arrow, and pulls back the string with his good arm. He rolls to his feet, stands, and has the arrow trained at her chest before she can take another step. 

“Go ahead,” she says, dropping the hand with the knife down by her side. 

“What do you want with Draykov’s daughter?” He’s not sure why he cares.

“You’re not going to shoot me. I could leave now without telling you anything, but I don’t know what you’ll tell your superiors.” 

“I want to help you,” he says before he realizes what he’s saying. He’s not even sure what she’s doing; he’s only concocted this noble theory that maybe she is trying to save this girl from a fate similar to her own, but for all he really knows, she’s planning to kill Draykov’s daughter right in front of her father’s eyes just for the fun of it.

She stares at him for a moment like she’s surprised, but then she smiles, says, “I don’t need your help,” and drops over the side of the building. 

By the time Clint makes it to the edge, she’s halfway down the building and not looking back at him, and he’s already put the arrow back in his quiver without realizing it. He hears something dull and tinny, and he realizes it’s a voice from his comm, draped over his shoulder. He sticks it back into his ear in time to hear, “God _damn it_ , Barton!”

Romanova hits street level, crosses, picks up what appears to be a pair of shoes, and continues toward the gala.

“She blindsided me,” Clint says.

“And she, what, tore out your comm?” Coulson hisses.

“Something like that.”

“And the target?”

“I’m going after her.”

“She’s still—” Coulson begins, then says in a clipped tone, “Agent Barton, if you do not report back to the temporary base of operations, you _will_ be removed from active duty.”

Clint yanks the comm from his ear, not interested in hearing the rest of the threat. All that’s left of Romanova is her long shadow, and eventually it’s pulled along after her. 

\---

When he makes it back to the hotel room, Coulson sits on the plastic desk chair in stony silence while his two lackeys sit cross-legged on the floor and type things into their laptops. Clint’s not sure what they could possibly be doing. He imagines they’re simultaneously emailing friends back at S.H.I.E.L.D. to share the news that the infamous Hawkeye was beat up by a girl. Clint isn’t exactly the most popular person on the base; he likes to work his way around orders and never gets punished for it since he’s the best agent they’ve got, which isn’t saying much for their operations procedures if their best agent is the only one who ignores them. 

Cates and Meyers eventually let themselves in and join the silence. They lean up on the opposite wall, behind Coulson like they’re his bodyguards. They spare glances at Clint in the way of _What the actual fuck, man_ , but he keeps his gaze trained on Coulson.

“Listen—” Clint says, but Coulson holds up a hand.

“I’ll do the talking now, if you don’t mind, Agent Barton.” 

He bites back a remark about how Coulson had the past five minutes to speak but had chosen to remain silent. Since he’s just royally screwed their mission, he decides against it, opting for a more respectful, “Yes, sir,” which only causes Coulson to huff what might have passed for a chuckle under other circumstances. 

“At this moment, Black Widow could be taking out her target.” Coulson looks up at Clint. “Because of the negligence of this team.” 

Cates and Meyers share a glance. They’re out of Coulson’s line of vision and it’s clear to everyone in the room that Coulson isn’t taking about _them_ because they did what they were supposed to do. Clint was the one who’d fucked up, but then again, he was the one who had to pull the trigger…or release the arrow, as it was. He keeps his mouth shut.

“Now, in all possibility, we’ve lost our window. She knows someone is after her if she attacked Agent Barton.” _If_ , he says, and it rings in Clint’s ears as an accusation. Like maybe he’d just _let_ her go…which he had, but Coulson didn’t have the right to accuse him of such things. 

“We can stay on guard for the last night of the gala,” Coulson says, “But I wouldn’t recommend this course of action.”

Clint is seeing red. He knows it’s all his fault, but Coulson doesn’t _know_ , doesn’t know what he thinks he knows, doesn’t know about Clint and doesn’t know about Romanova or Draykov’s daughter or the Red Room or…Clint realizes that maybe he doesn’t know anything of these things either, but he’s already moving to the door and he has his hand on the handle and Coulson’s voice is raised and angry behind him, and then he’s out the door and down the hall and out the window. 

He’s back to the barracks and halfway through tugging on his dress pants over his uniform before he realizes he’s planning on going to the gala, planning on finding Romanova and then…he doesn’t know. He’s not sure if he’s planning to help her or kill her. 

\---

He flashes his invitation at one of the guards at the door and gets a half-hearted smile in return. Immediately, his eyes are on the crowd, searching for a hint of gold. As expected, she’s nowhere to be seen. In the time he spent pissing off Coulson, she’s likely already done what she is planning…whether that’s a hit on Draykov or not, he doesn’t know. He’s still not sure what he believes. 

He strolls down the hallway off the great room and feigns a search for the bathroom. He doesn’t encounter anyone, even when he turns a corner and happens upon a staircase that he only vaguely remembers from skimming the floor plans. He hadn’t spent a lot of time studying them; he hadn’t thought he’d need to.

He knows it’s strange there are no guards on the staircase, knows it’s even stranger when the entire upstairs corridor is empty. It’s brightly lit and carpeted in red and gray, walls of white with silver lace-design. Halls of the rich. With one hand closed around his knife handle, he places a slow hand on the door of the room at the top of the stairs. He pushes it open and sees exactly what he expects: two guards on the floor of dark room, dimly lit from the light from the hallway. Dead. She wouldn’t have taken the chance at stunning them. He knows because neither would he.

He closes the door behind him and continues down the hallway with no real idea where he’s going. He feels like he remembers there’s a family room on this floor, and there’s a good chance the daughter’s room is around here too. He’s halfway down the hall when he’s hit again by her weight, and for whatever reason, she doesn’t just kill him like he’d expect. She pauses with her forearm against his lips and the knife’s tip pressed into his neck.

“What are you _doing_?” She’s speaking low and breathing hot in his face but she doesn’t remove her arm because she doesn’t really want him to answer. “Go back to your base, or maybe your own goddamn country.” She slams her shoulder into his and watches him wince. “You should get that stitched.” 

He could probably overpower her, but since she doesn’t seem especially intent to kill him, he stands still and listens, breathing deeply through his nose. 

“Go back where you came from. You aren’t going to kill me, and you can’t help me. No one hired me. That’s all you’re getting. I’m going to move my arm, and you’re going to leave—quietly. Out the window would be best. Seems like you’re good at that.”

She moves her arm. He doesn’t speak or move, just watches her eyes shift. 

“If you don’t leave, I’ll kill you.”

“You could have killed me on the roof. I could have killed you on the roof. Forgive me, but I think we’re past this.”

She sighs and turns, keeping to one side of the hall and crouching forward. She’s in tactical gear now and keeps distance between them. He follows her like she’s given him permission. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, could be betraying his agency or his country, but there’s something in her eyes and he knows he’s doing what’s right.

She stops at the end of the hall and motions for him to stop as well. “If you want to help, stay out of sight.” She lunges into the room with her knife raised but it quickly falls to her side. “No one’s here. She’s not here,” she says, her voice low. She looks back at him. “Who do you work for? Did you take her? Did you stall long enough for them to take her?” She has the knife raised again and she’s coming toward him. She seems unconcerned about the likelihood that any of Draykov’s guards are still alive and crosses through the middle of the girl’s bedroom. She looks out of place amidst the pink and ivory adornments. 

He stretches out his hands, palms out to her, but when she doesn’t stop, he pulls his own blade. He’s not about to be killed by his own mark for his stupidity. “Why bother to stall you when I could have already killed you?”

She stands a good distance from him still. She seems to consider his words, and he can almost see her willing herself to hold back a biting response about how he couldn’t have killed her in the first place.

“I don’t need your help,” she says. He has to spin to miss her knife, and he does, barely, but he thinks she’s still holding back. There’s still something off in her eyes, sadness there that he recognizes. It’s like the girl in the street, not the shadow of a girl he actually saw, but the girl he imagined. 

And he knows then that he’s been right all along. She’s not trying to make a hit: she’s trying to stop one. She’s trying to stop someone from getting Draykov’s daughter, and if the look on her face is any indication, she’s just realized she failed.

She slips past him, making it obvious that she has no intention of killing him. “If you come after me again, I’ll kill you.”

“What do they want with her?” he says to her back.

She doesn’t answer, keeps walking.

“The Red Room. What do they want with her?”

She keeps walking back the way they’d come and ducks into a doorway on the right. She’s halfway out the window before he makes it to the room. He curses his decision to change into his dress attire.

“We can help. The people I work for can help you get her back. So she can grow up with her family, with people who love her. And we could help you with the others. We could help you shut them down.” He doesn’t know why he’s saying it. He doesn’t even think it’s true.

Romanova freezes, straddling the windowsill. She doesn’t look at him. “I said I’d kill you.” She’s out the window and he doesn’t follow. 

\---

Clint bypasses the hotel stakeout and lets himself into the S.H.I.E.L.D. barracks. He’s only slightly surprised that his clearance code hasn’t been revoked. He’s disobeyed orders before and they keep allowing him back, but he knows this time that it’s serious. He allied with a mark and he has nothing to show for it. At best, he’d only have to endure another of Coulson’s “blatant disregard for orders” rants. At worst, and—it’s beginning to dawn on him now as the adrenaline wears away—most probably, he’d be neutralized. They wouldn’t bother to try him for treason; the fucking agency barely even exists. 

He climbs to the top bunk again. The barracks are quiet without Coulson and the others trying to make small talk. The longer he thinks about what he’s done, the more complacent he becomes. He knew it would come to this eventually: he’d break a rule for the last time. He could try to run, but he is no coward. He’d already used his clearance, and now he’d just wait to be taken.

He’d drifted into the same sort of half-sleep that he assumed on long hits when he’s dragged halfway from his bunk and he jumps into action.

“Don’t fight,” and it’s _her_ voice. 

“What the fuck? How did you get in here?” He slides the rest of the way from the bunk and faces her on the floor. She takes several steps back from him, keeping the distance between them.

“What happens to you now that you didn’t kill me?”

“How did you get in here?” 

“What happens if I surrender?” 

He stares at her. 

“Do your people kill me? Do you go on your merry way? Do they kill us both because you were too much of a coward to do it yourself?”

“Fuck you and your death wish.”

She smiles between tight lips. “What do you know about the Red Room?”

He doesn’t answer.

“They’re taking rich girls. They’re taking them with the orphans and with the poor girls, too, but they’re giving the rich girls back—the important ones. They’re giving them back with kill orders, making them sleepers. So Ana—that’s Draykov’s daughter—she may grow up with a family that loves her. But one day, she’ll kill them. And she’s not the only one.”

He’s shocked and stands slack-jawed. 

“I know others. By name. Is it enough leverage?”

“Better leverage than I have right now,” he says.

“We can make a deal. With your people.”

“We?”

“You’re bringing me in,” she says.

He doesn’t have enough time to decide if he trusts her when the barrack door swings open and Coulson steps through. Romanova’s eyes are wide and Clint grabs her by the arm and pins it behind her back. The knife drops and he kicks it away.

“Bastard,” she says through gritted teeth.

“Shut up. Haven’t killed you yet.”

Coulson is mid-sentence before he realizes that Clint has the Widow, unarmed and alive, in the bunkroom. “Barton, what the fuck are you doing?”

“She has information we want. She wants to make a deal.”

“We don’t _make deals_ with assassins.”

Cates and Meyers flank Coulson with their guns drawn, steady and awaiting orders. For once, Clint admires their patience. 

Romanova makes as to speak, but Clint twists her arm so far he feels her shoulder jerk out of place. She doesn’t even cry out.

“The Red Room is taking rich girls—important girls—and planting them as sleeper agents in their own families.”

Coulson seems vaguely impressed with the information, but it’s not enough.

“And she knows who they are. Some of them, anyway. We could shut down this whole operation. Re—recalibrate the girls.”

“So you suggest we torture her for information?” Coulson asks. 

“She wants to work with us.”

“So you suggest we make our mark an agent?” 

“I suggest we try it. She has valuable information and valuable skills. She knows people—”

“She has _enemies_ ,” Coulson interrupts. 

“She goes rogue, messes up an op, we kill her.”

Romanova bucks in his arms. He tightens his grip.

“And I suppose you’ll be the one who kills her? You’d probably be buying her a one-way ticket to Mexico where the climate’s better.”

“Fuck you, Coulson,” Clint says. “We need her. You kill her and you report what happened on this op and they kill me. You let her go and they kill me. You lie about what happened and they kill us both. We take her back and explain the situation, and then _maybe_ we live. And it just so happens that _maybe_ she lives, too.”

Coulson looks from Clint to Romanova. “And you? You surrender willingly?”

“I did before this asshole ripped my shoulder out of socket. Now I’m not so sure,” she says.

“Well, if you’re not sure.” Coulson points two fingers forward; Cates and Meyers step inward.

“Fuck you. I surrender willingly.”

Clint twists her arm and hisses, “Speak nice,” in her ear.

Coulson calls Cates and Meyers down and shakes his head. “I’m going to regret this. But it’s your ass,” he says to Clint. “We fly out tonight.” He directs Cates and Meyers to take Romanova, and she goes with them to the adjoining room. Coulson stays behind a moment, arms crossed. “It’s my ass, too, Barton. And it’s not the first time—I guess you know that.”

Clint nods. He hears Romanova’s shoulder joint snap back into place.

\---

On the jet, she stays alert, barely moves or looks away from the aisle. She cradles her arm on her lap, but she’s refused a sling—Clint too tried to refuse treatment, but Coulson had taken some sort of sick pleasure in stitching his arm without morphine. Romanova is still wearing her gear, though Coulson had offered her some civilian clothes. She hasn’t said anything since the confrontation.

He drops down in the seat across the aisle. “How’s your arm?”

“What you did was entirely unnecessary.”

“The part where I didn’t kill you?”

“Fuck you,” she says.

He smiles. “What did I say about speaking nice?”

“Fuck. You,” she says, louder this time.

“Clint,” he says, realizing suddenly that he’s not introduced himself at all. “My name. Clint Barton.”

She doesn’t respond, just cuts her eyes to him, and for a moment he thinks she’s scared.

“They will try to torture you,” he says.

“They can kill me.” 

“What will they do to the girls? In the Red Room.” The real question is unspoken but they both hear it: _What did they do to you?_

Her eyes are distant, unfocused, and then she says, quieter, “Fuck you,” and the conversation is over. 

He dozes in the seat beside her, and after some time of silence and a short debrief, the jet touches down in New York. At the hatch door, she stands beside him, and he has half a mind to say something comforting, but there’s nothing he can say. They’re both about face the fire, the fire of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Fury and whatever is in store. And Clint may die because of this. And Romanova may survive in spite of it.

The hatch opens and brightness engulfs them. They walk, side by side, into the flames.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for the Big Bangity Bang challenge over at universe_the on Livejournal, specifically for the marvelous Team Water. 
> 
> It has been a long time in the making, but I finally decided I'd write it out completely for this challenge. I'm not going to lie: I lost interest somewhere around 4000 words and left it sitting for a few weeks. I'm not sure that it holds together 100% or that it maintains continuity well enough, but it's all here and done!


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